House by House

This week’s miCRo is an international collaboration: It was chosen by a class at Amsterdam University College (under the guidance of their professor Huan Hsu). They had this to say about it:

Anna Schuhmann: In Kathleen Latham’s “House by House,” the setting emerges almost in passing, embedded in a single line that quietly reorients the entire piece. From there, Latham turns toward what remains—a cooking pot, an empty frame, a forgotten shoe—objects that invite acts of imagining, gestures toward lives that cannot be fully recovered or translated. The story attends to memory as something fragmentary and unsettled, shaped through absence as much as presence.

Listen to Latham read the story:

House by House

There is a cooking pot, just there, where Sasha kicked it with his boot. An empty picture frame. A forgotten shoe.

Five of us rest against an inner wall, our legs stretched out across the dirty floor, and for a moment it’s easy to imagine a fire in the grate, the smell of stew, the noise in the distance merely a barking dog. I turn to say something to Bohdan and remember he’s not there.

Artem pokes around the house. Fiddles with a lace curtain. Opens a cupboard. Rummages around and pulls out a tattered book with a triumphant smile. “Aha!” he cries.

I am too tired to respond. Our packs are heavy and there’s been a pebble in my boot for miles. Plus, Bohdan is gone and I can’t seem to find my voice.

Beside me, Sasha picks up the abandoned picture frame. The wood is intact, but the glass is cracked and murky like a cataract. He holds it up. “Wedding photo,” he says.

It’s a game we play. Guess what used to be there. Great-grandmother. Cherished child. First home.

Whatever it was, someone took it with them. I imagine them slipping the photo from the frame—hands trembling—and tucking it into their pocket. Or suitcase. Or wheelbarrow laden with silver and bedclothes. I hope whoever took it is far from here. I hope they’re not buried beneath the rubble on our right. I hope their son isn’t doing what we’re doing. Clawing our way forward. House by house.

“One at a time, all the way to Mariupol,” Bohdan used to say.

Sasha waits for my guess.

“Family dog?”

He rolls his eyes at my laziness.

Outside, the guns have slowed. They’ll pick up again in the morning. When we move to the next house.

Artem heads for the stairs. “I’ll take first watch.”

Sasha leaves the frame on the floor and joins him. The rest of us try to get comfortable. In the shuffle, someone steps on the frame and cracks it in two.

When I finally fall asleep, I dream we’re heading back the way we came. We’re in the house with the blue shutters. “Toothless granny,” dream-Sasha says, holding up a bright yellow frame.

“Firstborn son,” Bohdan counters. He’s missing his legs.

I look at the frame in my own hand. Gleaming silver. Glass shiny as a mirror. I try to find my reflection but see only Bohdan staring back at me. Smiling and smiling.